Countdown

It's two weeks until Labour Weekend, which is traditionally the time in New Zealand to plant out tomatoes and all other plants which are frost tender. We've just had a week of bad weather, including a storm which brought down another part of our ageing fence. So I've mostly walked around in tiny gaps in the rain looking at what is and isn't growing. I've harvested some more broad beans which was an acceptable excuse to eat garlic fried in butter under the guise of eating some greens. Fionn and I killed TWO HUNDRED slugs who were sullying our sandpit before the rain set in. We had a variety of killing methods in simultaneous operation in order to keep up with the high volume of slimey bodies. Several potato plants have sprouted - others seem to have either rotted in the ground or given themselves up to hungry ravenous greedy and unwelcome in my garden blackbirds.

The council has cut lots of very long grass at the end of our street. I have designs on moving the clippings up to our place to mulch the garlic.